Imaging devices can have different native resolutions and frame rates. Focal Plane Array (FPA) devices typically use Charge Coupled Device (CCD) or similar technologies to capture video images. CCD imagers typically capture 30 full frames per second (fps) using a technique called interlacing, whereby first the odd numbered horizontal lines of the frame are imaged and then the even numbered lines are imaged. Each half frame is resolved all at once at 60 fps, and when displayed on a screen each half frame is blended to some degree by the human eye with the next half frame to make the full screen image. The 60 fps refresh rate is generally beyond the human perception threshold, so the video appears continuous and uninterrupted. Any significant movement of the subject matter faster than the actual instantaneous exposure rate of the CCD imager merely causes image structure to fall into multiple pixels in the CCD imager during image capturing. Most CCD images can therefore accommodate a sizeable amount of movement of the subject matter being imaged before viewing it becomes visually uncomfortable for the user. Moving subject matter simply appears blurry and snaps back into focus once the movement ceases. Users of SBI devices expect the same or a better quality of SBI images than those of CCD imagers.
SBI devices, however, use a higher resolution technology that is less forgiving in regards to movement of the subject matter. Instead of acquiring the entire frame at once, the area to be imaged is rapidly scanned point-by-point by an incident beam of light, the returned light being picked up by sensors and translated into a native data stream representing a series of scanned points and associated returned light intensity values. Unlike CCD imaging, where all or half of the pixels are imaged simultaneously, each scanned point in an SBI image is temporally displaced forward in time from the previously scanned point. If the SBI device and scene experience relative movement between the time the first data point is sampled and the last data point is sampled, the subject matter as a whole will not be imaged evenly. Because each data point is sampled very quickly in full resolution, there is relatively no blurring of the image to mask movement artifacts as one has with CCD imaging.
Additionally, the scanning pattern for an SBI image is usually a bi-sinusoidal or some other scanning pattern as known in the art; see, for example see the scanning beam imaging endoscope in U.S. Patent Application US 2005/0020926 A1 to Wikloff et al. Due to the temporal differences in each scanned point, a complex relationship exists between the instantaneous direction and velocity of the SBI device's scanning beam and direction and velocity of the moving subject matter resulting in image artifacts not typically seen in CCD imaging.
When the subject matter moves appreciably relative to the scanning rate of the SBI device, the scanning beam may no longer image the subject matter evenly. At low speeds, the subject matter may appear to become somewhat distorted, and these distortions can appear visually as texture artifacts where some features become thicker or thinner based on the interaction between the scanning pattern and the direction of motion of the subject matter. Some fine features can become suddenly more easily discernable while fine features in other parts of the image can disappear altogether as the scanned lines lump together. At higher rates of subject matter motion, some parts of the subject matter may be scanned multiple times, while others not scanned at all. Depending on the relative motions of the subject matter and scanning beam, this aliasing effect can present itself for example as multiple simultaneous overlapping images, serrations of various forms, or as a tearing of parts or all of the image. To the user, these effects can be visually uncomfortable and distracting.
What is needed is a system, device, and method for eliminating image artifacts when an SBI device moves appreciably relative to the subject matter being imaged.